The disclosed invention relates generally to control of distribution of content over a network, and in particular, to control of processing and/or distribution of static, media, and/or software objects in a procedural software framework.
The world wide web is a platform that has been used to exchange various forms of content including videos, text, music, etc. Often this content is distributed to users and/or computers in an ad-hoc fashion, for example, using e-mail or as files embedded in a web-page. Recently, various forms of “viral” distribution or replication of content have been developed that allow users to more easily spread content to other users than previously known ad-hoc methods. Although these viral distribution methods are more convenient than distributing content in an ad-hoc fashion, they have many shortcomings. For example, they do not provide for methods to control undesirable distribution of content based on criteria defined by, for example, an owner of the content. In other words, the spreading of content using ad-hoc methods and/or forms of viral spreading cannot be controlled in a useful way. Thus, there is a need for an apparatus and method for restricting or permitting the distribution of content.